Tech is wreaking 'catastrophic costs,' Jim Balsillie warns

The modern digital era, a “new era of human commodification,” violates fundamental human rights, warned BlackBerry founder Jim Balsillie in a speech on Sunday evening.

“The data generated by our experiences, choices, and even our thoughts, are captured, processed, and traded as raw material for manipulative algorithms deployed for profit and power, all with catastrophic costs to society, including mental health crisis, democratic erosion, societal polarization, lost economic dynamism and misinformation to name a few,” said Balsillie, according to notes of Balsillie’s speech, obtained by National Post in advance of his talk.

In his remarks, made to the Ditchley Foundation’s conference in Ottawa, the Canadian tech entrepreneur argued that we’re now living in a new economy where “wealth, po